Failure to root

Between the rebels in the House and the various rogue Governors running around, John Bel Edwards has pretty much gotten his butt kicked all over the place his first six months in office. So far we've seen one special session fail to fix a budget shortfall, a regular session that failed to deliver a capital outlay budget at all, and special session part two looks like it's unraveling right out of the gate.

The governor wants to approve $600 million in taxes to prevent cuts
to the TOPS scholarship program, K-12 schools, public colleges and
universities, safety net hospitals and the state prison system. Edwards
has made this pitch in private meetings with lawmakers in recent days
and again in a joint address to the House and Senate on Tuesday morning.

But the governor ran into a wall of opposition among Republicans on
the Ways and Means Committee to his proposals that would raise
individual income taxes by taking away tax deductions or by changing tax
brackets.

Republicans used their 12-7 majority on the committee to keep those tax measures from advancing.

All three of them would have hit upper- and middle-income taxpayers in the pocketbook, in a state where the poor pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes.

Not advancing was House Bill 11. It would limit the deduction on
state income taxes that individuals can claim from the itemized
deductions they take on their federal tax returns that are in excess of
the federal standard deduction. Under the proposal by state Rep. Rob
Shadoin, R-Ruston, taxpayers would be allowed to take 57.5 percent of
the deduction, instead of 100 percent today. The change would raise $116 million.

A study by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, a
Washington, D.C.-based group, shows that taxpayers who earn more than
$103,000 would shoulder 76 percent of the tax increase.

It's not easy when you're negotiating with people who don't actually care whether anything gets funded so long as their wealthy friends and backers are protected. But the game here is to beat those people. And so far Governor Edwards hasn't figured out how to do it.